Two days of Monterey diving, Point Joe, Outer Otter Cove, Chase Reef, Inner Chase Reef 9-22,23-2015

Greg Hoberg and I made four good dives in two days this week, we dived the last day of summer and the first day of fall.  Sea conditions were less than ideal so we made one dive off Point Joe near Spanish Bay (Pebble Beach-Asilomar) and the other three dives inside Monterey Bay.  Visibility was disappointing on our Point Joe dive (20 to 25 ft with suspended particles from sea surge),(by our current spoiled standards, we've had better than typical summertime visibility on our dives this summer).  It also continues to be much warmer than normal, we will miss this when it reverts to normal.  Below are a couple pictures from this dive, I didn't take many, a few more may be found at:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6198508433988456001?authkey=CN3uuvHLz-rl4AE

 Greg found a couple of golf balls, they certainly had traveled quite a ways from where they were played!

Can you find the sculpin faces?  One is facing the camera, 1/4 up from bottom, 1/3 in from right.  The other is facing left, 1/4 up from bottom, 1/5 in from left margin.

Our second dive was outer Otter Cove (Otter Cove is my favorite shore dive site in Monterey Bay, great offshore rock structure if you are ready and able to do a long snorkel swim from shore).  We had great light and good visibility - 25 to 30 ft or so.  62 degree water at the bottom!  A highlight of the dive was right at the beginning.  Greg spotted a nice sized wolf eel out in the open right after we started our dive.

 The wolf eel is swimming toward the lower left corner of the picture.

 The wolf eel is swimming across the center of the picture.  Someday I'll get a good picture of a wolf eel out in the open, I hope....

 Otter Cove has great rock structures.

 This rock reminded me of the bow of a sunken schooner.

A really fun, relaxing dive, and thanks to having Greg's boat, no long swim back to shore, followed by a herculean climb up stairs to the car!
For a number of additional "seascape" pictures from this dive, please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6198509002966396721?authkey=CPi5we7x28qLXw

On Wednesday we made two dives on the first day of fall, both in Monterey Bay so that we didn't have to fight the choppy seas.  The first dive was Chase reef, tucked just inside Point Pinos, the second dive on inner Chase reef a bit further into the bay near outer Otter cove.  We were entertained by a hunting harbor seal on our first dive and we also found a new (for us) type of nudibranch, perhaps due to the exceptionally warm (62 degree, ten degrees above normal, at the bottom) water.

 Black eyed goby with a horde of brittle stars.  The brittle star population has exploded since one of their major predators, sea stars, were decimated by the sea star wasting disease.

 Cabezon with brittle stars.

 This harbor seal was hunting near us for much of our dive, always fun to see.

 A new (for us) type of nudibranch (Chromodoris macfarlandi), maybe here because of our much warmer than normal sea temperature.

 Greg gets a ling cod close up.

A beautiful cabezon, well camouflaged to match the rocks.  To see more pictures from this dive please go to:  https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6198509580285974129?authkey=CIuQp7KykuiUqAE

Our final dive was on "inner" Chase reef only about 1/3 mile further into the bay.  Visibility was, unfortunately much reduced and bottom temperature was 57 degrees- still well above a normal 52, but not nearly as comfortable as 62 on our previous dive...

 Beautiful kelp forest, look how much greener the water is on this dive.

More great rock structures.
For more from this dive, please see:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6198508615738583265?authkey=CNjzoZiPzYKYNg

Beautiful dive on Mono-lobo and a third dive on our new site off Point Joe 9-17-2015

Greg Hoberg and I took advantage of continued good sea conditions for a second day of diving last Thursday.  Our first dive was on Mono-lobo where we had 57 degree water temperature and 35 ft of visibility (variable).  We had a very good dive and once again Greg's superb underwater navigation brought us right back to the boat.  When we surfaced we discovered that the wind had really cranked up and so tried to depart quickly before the wind chop got any larger.  Alas, I couldn't raise the anchor (we always try to position it to both hold (hate it when it doesn't!) and be retrievable...But the wind had made the boat shift the anchor.  Greg went back in to re-position it, when he surfaced I still couldn't get it free so he went back down and gave three hard tugs so that I would raise it immediately, which was successful.  What followed of course was a race to get Greg back in the fast blowing boat before we hit the thick kelp and the breaking waves on the rocks....

Below are pictures from Mono-lobo, you can see more (I shot lot's of kelp-seascape-sun silhouette pictures trying to get one worth of Donna's painting):
 https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6196585346011808209?authkey=CP38oNDpm83YfA

 A brightly colored Painted Greenling (about 4 inches long) sits among equally beautiful strawberry anemones.

 Greg leads the way along the steep wall at the deep edge of Mono-lobo.  The dive was bright when you weren't under one of the few areas that still have dense giant kelp cover.

 Greg illuminates a large white metredium sea anemone deep(ish, 65 ft or so) on the wall.

 Normally this tremendous rock structure would have heavy coverage of Palm Kelp, only a few remain in this photo, they are being devoured by hordes of sea urchins.

 Mono-lobo is a magical dive when the sun is out and the water is clear!

 Here are a couple of giant kelp holdfasts pulled clear from the bottom.  Normally these sometimes fail during big winter storms but they've been failing all year thanks to munching sea urchins in their thousands.

 Greg swims up one of the many small canyons found throughout the Mono-lobo site.

Our second dive was our third on a new site we found off Point Joe (near Asilomar and Spanish Bay). The site is marked by the last sizable patch of kelp off Point Joe.  This patch always has many sea otters and they seem to be munching enough sea urchins to maintain the kelp bed, fortunately.  We had 25 to 35 ft of visibility and 58 degree bottom temperature.  Below are some pictures from this dive, to see more go to:  https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6196584915527191985?authkey=CN6068bqjfCr8gE

 A cabezon, near the palm kelp stalk, is well colored to blend in with the purple coralline algae growing on the bottom.

 Greg gets a shot of another cabezon.  You can just spot the cabezon as the third corner of a triangle formed by Greg's orange strobe and the blue handle of his underwater camera case.

 Greg swims past great rock structures and good stands of giant kelp.

 Greg being dive bombed by a swiftly swimming sea lion.  Frequently one of us will completely miss seeing a sea lion or harbor seal due to the limited breadth of vision due to our masks.

 Greg with some more huge rocks at this site.

Two good dives on the Pinnacles and on the outer rock off Point Cypress, 9-16-2015

Greg Hoberg and I enjoyed 35 ft of visibility and bottom water temperature of 57 degrees on two dives this past Wednesday.  The swell and chop was tiny so surge wasn't an issue.  On the ride down we encountered one lone humpback whale traveling south near Point Joe, probably looking for more anchovies.  We noticed that, since our last dives in Carmel about two weeks ago, the water in Carmel Bay has come up to almost the same surface temperature as Monterey Bay (59 degrees vs 61 degrees).  Much warmer than normal and much warmer than Carmel Bay has been.  We also noticed many sea otters on the remaining kelp beds just inside the north boundary of Carmel Bay.  Maybe they like the warmer water?  Maybe they are discovering lots of sea urchins finally large enough to bother eating?

Here are some pictures from our Pinnacles dive, you can see more at:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6196349099227609809?authkey=CIDQ4t600Jf_pAE

 I was pleased to see several rainbow stars on this dive, they seem to be recovering from the sea star wasting plague.

 Sculpins are always cool to see.  My new flood light helps me spot them more easily.

 A group of feather duster worms filter feeding.

 The same group of feather duster worms withdrawn into their tubes after being startled by an intrusive photographer.

 The thinner kelp bed, due to hordes of sea urchins, sunny skies, and good visibility makes diving the Pinnacles a delight.

An unfortunate sea urchin, upside down, is meeting its slow demise in a white spotted sea anemone.

Our second dive was the outer rock off Cypress Point.

 Greg in an example seascape off Cypress Point.

 Small white anemones, metridium senile, are found in shallow, turbulent water, like on this shelf on the outer rock at Cypress Point.  Also in the picture are aggregating anemones.

 A swiftly passing sea lion.

 Greg getting a picture of a red rock crab (partially in view just to the left of center a small ways up from the bottom in the picture.

Here's my picture of the red rock crab.

For more pictures from this dive please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6196349428317577905?authkey=CKjmz5mS-pKRTQ

On our way back we were entertained by a couple of hundred long beaked common dolphin feeding off Otter Cove and then riding our bow wave, fun.

A fun first dive on the shale reef off Del Monte Beach, Monterey September 13, 2015

This weekend Monterey and Pacific Grove hosted triathlons on Saturday and Sunday which blocked access to our favorite Monterey shore dive sites so Tom Healy took me too a shale reef and its kelp bed off of Del Monte Beach.  I'd wanted to dive the shale reef for several years so finally got to see it.  We had twenty feet of visibility and 59 degree surface temperature, 56 degrees at the bottom in forty feet of water.  The shale reef is a very long swim offshore, maybe two hundred yards or so after about a hundred yard walk in full gear....

The shale reef is really cool, it is a series of ledges that reminds me of the limestone ledges found offshore in the Gulf of Mexico off the west coast of Florida where I started diving forty-eight years ago.  But the Gulf has grouper instead of rockfish and doesn't have giant kelp forests and harbor seals..

Copper rockfish, kelp rockfish, and tube anemones in front of a shale ledge.

 Tom with the shale ledge.  There is a series of ledges winding through the area.

 We saw lots of Sea Hare sea slugs laying eggs.  Perhaps due to the far warmer than usual water temperature, there are more sea hares in the area than I've ever seen before.

 No, Tom is not preparing to spear the harbor seal,  Tom has a video camera and video light attached to his spear gun.

 Tom with his new friend.

To see more pictures from this dive, please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6194567581018378001?authkey=COKtt_mx4r3z7gE

To see a video of our harbor seal please see the video.

https://youtu.be/-94BFYotReY